The Obama Presidency Oral History releases 26 new interviews and 400 new stories related to healthcare reform on an innovative new website.

In her interview, Connie Anderson discusses the impact of her late sister Natoma Canfield's letter to President Obama. She details how the letter, which described Canfield's struggle with rising health insurance premiums after her cancer battle, influenced healthcare reform. Pictured above, President Obama speaks with Canfield, right, and Anderson, in the Oval Office, on December 12, 2012. Canfield's letter hangs on the wall in the background. Canfield died in June 2021. Photo by Pete Souza.

This week, coinciding with the 14th anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) being signed into law, Columbia University’s Incite Institute released 26 new interviews from the Obama Presidency Oral History.

The interviews, available on the project’s website, tell the story of the ACA, from inception to passage to implementation, through the voices of White House officials and advisors, congressional staff, industry and civil society leaders, union members, and extraordinary citizens.

This release is the project’s first since May 2023, when 17 interviews related to climate, the environment, and energy were released and a panel discussion was held in New York City. The Obama Presidency Oral History makes visible the dialogic relationships of power—between those who wield it, and those who influence and experience it—in shaping policy and American life.

“The ACA is an extraordinary achievement that changed the lives of tens of millions of Americans,” says the project’s Principal Investigator, Peter Bearman. He added, “How that happened is important to understand and this study tells that story.”

A Rubik’s Cube of Negotiations

In a press briefing on March 20, 2024, Associate Research Scholar Evan McCormick reinforced that the unique, expansive design of this project is critical to understanding healthcare reform. He cited an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Anne DeParle, in which DeParle recalls President Obama using a Rubik’s Cube as a metaphor. 

      “The president used to make this motion—I think I have one of these on my desk somewhere. Yes. Here it is. He used to make this motion [twists hands], and without having a real Rubik’s Cube, he’d say, 'It’s like we’ve just got to get each—you know, there’s so many moving parts. We’ve just got to get them to click into place.'

      And I remember thinking, yes, Mr. President, and you’re so smart, you probably could do [laughs] the Rubik’s Cube, but I can’t. And every time I move the orange, the blue—I think I’ve got the two orange ones lining up, and then the blue shoots in there, and I can’t fix it. But there were a lot of days like that, where you get two things to agree, and then the other one would be a problem.”

“Seeing the ACA from the inside-out and the outside-in makes it possible to understand the complex process by which the law came to be, and what it means to Americans more than a dozen years later,” McCormick said.

This latest release includes interviews with union leaders Andy Stern (SEIU) and Richard Trumka (AFL-CIO), former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, National Medical Association President Carolyn Britton, and American Medical Association President Nancy Nielsen, all of whom had a role in shaping the ACA.

Moreover, the release highlights the  engaged citizens whose actions influenced the presidency, including Connie Anderson, who, with her sister, became a face of the ACA, Jim Houser, an Oregon auto shop owner turned healthcare advocate, and Michael Minor, a pastor who fought to expand healthcare access in Mississippi.

Breakthroughs in Digital Oral History Presentation

When the Obama Presidency Oral History began releasing interviews last year, its website was praised for pushing the envelope on accessibility and user-friendliness. With this latest release, Incite, an interdisciplinary social science research institute at Columbia, has unveiled several new innovations that represent breakthroughs in how oral histories are made available online.

A core innovation is the development of stories—moments in interviews that are identified from instances where narrators discuss a common topic, person, policy, place, or organization at length. Using a combination of close reading and statistical methods, Incite has identified thousands of stories and their overlaps, allowing users to easily explore and compare different perspectives. More than 1,700 of these stories are now available for the first time.

The updated Obama Presidency Oral History website’s mapping feature allows users to explore thousands of interview references to places in America and around the world.

A core innovation is the development of stories—moments in interviews that are identified from instances where narrators discuss a common topic, person, policy, place, or organization at length. Using a combination of close reading and statistical methods, Incite has identified thousands of stories and their overlaps, allowing users to easily explore and compare different perspectives. More than 1,700 of these stories are now available for the first time.

The updated Obama Presidency Oral History website allows users to explore more than 1,700 interconnected stories, a figure that will grow as interviews are released.

The stories are used as building blocks for several new features, including a timeline, map, and playlists. In addition, these stories are used to index oral history interviews, allowing users to more deeply engage with key interview moments.

“These innovations help make oral history interviews more navigable than ever and help visitors surface stories, make comparisons, and explore issues from a multitude of perspectives,” said Chris Pandza, who spearheaded the project’s public-facing design in collaboration with the award-winning creative agency Huncwot, natural language processing expert Jean-Philippe Cointet from Sciences Po, and Incite’s internal research team. The design aims to provide a user experience that is accessible to broad audiences and provides many entry points for people from all walks of life.

As the Obama Presidency Oral History archive grows, more features will come online.

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On Saturday, September 28th, the Obama Presidency Oral History officially completed its first interview, with advisory board member Karida Brown traveling to Atlanta to speak with Rev. Joseph E. Lowery.

Lowery was a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., and one of the first civil rights leaders to endorse Barack Obama in 2008. We could think of no better person with whom to launch this project, and we're incredibly grateful he was willing to share his memories.

Magazine cover by Richie Pope

Columbia Magazine’s Fall 2019 cover story, written by Paul Hond, centers on the Obama Presidency Oral History, describing our process and beautifully conveying the project’s meaning and significance. Read the full piece here.

After extensive searches, INCITE and the Columbia Center for Oral History are pleased to announce several additions to the research and administrative team for the Obama Presidency Oral History project. The project, expected to include up to 425 participants and over 1200 hours of video and audio recordings, aims to produce a comprehensive, enduring record of the decisions, actions, and impact of the Obama Administration.

Three exceptional presidential historians will join the current team of Peter Bearman, Mary Marshall Clark, Kimberly Springer, Michael Falco, William McAllister, and Terrell Frazier. Nicole Hemmer is a political historian specializing in media, conservatism, and the far-right. She has undertaken a wide-ranging set of projects, including her first book, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Penn Press, 2016). Dov Weinryb Grohsgal has taught in the Princeton University Department of History and served as an associate research scholar in the university’s School of International and Public Affairs. His research, scholarship and teaching focus at the intersection of presidential administrations, social movements, inequality, and race; his forthcoming book is “Bring Us Together”: The Politics and Policies of School Desegregation in the Nixon White House. Evan D. McCormick has held postdoctoral fellowships from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. His work focuses on Inter-American relations during the Reagan Years, and contested ideas of security, democracy, and rights in the Western Hemisphere. Evan’s first book, under contract from Cornell University Press, is entitled Beyond Revolution and Repression: U.S. Foreign Policy and Latin American Democracy, 1980-1989. 

Also joining as Project Coordinator will be Liz Strong, a graduate of our Oral History Master of Arts program. Liz co-authored Columbia’s guide for oral history transcription and audit-editing in 2018. She has served as an Oral History Program Manager for the New York Preservation Oral History Project (NYPAP) and as Project Coordinator for the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Muslims in Brooklyn Project.

Research and editorial efforts will be aided further by current INCITE staffers Tess McClure and Julius Wilson. Tess is a journalist and editor, previously the deputy editor for VICE New Zealand. She recently earned a Master’s in Journalism at Columbia University. Julius, who also serves as INCITE’s Program and Communications Coordinator, graduated from Columbia in 2018 with a major in Sociology and a minor in African-American Studies, writing his thesis on journalistic professional values in the Trump era. 

Hundreds of people to participate in comprehensive record of the decisions, actions, and effects of the Obama presidency. Partners, University of Chicago and University of Hawaiʻi, Will Collect Oral Histories from President and Mrs. Obama’s Early Lives 

NEW YORK — Columbia University and the Obama Foundation are pleased to announce that the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, housed at INCITE, has been selected to conduct the official oral history of the Obama Presidency. This project will provide a comprehensive, enduring record of the decisions, actions, and effects of this historic presidency. The University of Hawaiʻi and the University of Chicago will partner with Columbia in this project. The University of Hawaiʻi will focus on President Obama’s early life, and the University of Chicago will concentrate on the Obamas’ lives in Chicago. 

“The pride we feel in counting President Obama as an alumnus involves much more than the recognition of his time as a student here many years ago. This is a relationship built on shared values and interests that is producing public spirited projects of enormous, even transformative, potential at Columbia,” said University President Lee C. Bollinger. “The latest venture will capitalize on Columbia's unsurpassed talent for assembling oral history and will, I am sure, create an invaluable resource for understanding an historic presidency.”

This project builds on a longstanding tradition of presidential oral histories. For more than 60 years, oral history has been used to record the stories of people inside and outside of the White House that shed light on a president’s time in office. This will be the second presidential oral history project to be conducted by Columbia, home to the country’s largest and oldest oral history archive, which houses the Eisenhower Administration Oral History project. 

“Columbia’s experience executing complicated and detailed oral histories set them apart, and we believe the university’s thoughtful approach will result in an exciting oral history archive for historians, academics, and storytellers as well as the public to learn about and investigate the Obama presidency,” said David Simas, Chief Executive Officer of the Obama Foundation. “We are grateful to the University of Hawaiʻi and the University of Chicago for participating and ensuring that the important work that preceded President and Mrs. Obama’s time in the White House is integrated into this project.”    

“Michelle Obama famously observed that ʻYou canʻt really understand Barack until you understand Hawaiʻi. The University of Hawaiʻi’s extraordinary Center for Oral History is looking forwarding to exploring those early days with those who were part of President Obama’s story," said University of Hawaiʻi President David Lassner.

And in a joint statement from the University of Chicago, Adam Green, Associate Professor of American History, and Jacqueline Stewart, Professor in the Department of Cinema and American Studies, announced, “We are pleased to collaborate with Columbia on this exciting project. The stories of Michelle and Barack Obama are intertwined with the story of Chicago and the South Side in particular. We look forward to contributing to that historic narrative, with a focus on how their city helped to shape them as civic leaders.”

During the next five years, starting this summer, the Obama Presidency Oral History Project will conduct interviews with about 400 people, including senior leaders and policy makers within the administration, as well as elected officials, campaign staff, journalists, and other key figures -- Republican and Democrat -- outside of the White House.

The Obama Presidency Oral History Project also will incorporate interviews with individuals who represent different dimensions of daily American life, whose perspectives enable the archive to weave recollections of administration officials with the stories and experiences of people who were affected by the administration’s decisions. This project will also examine Mrs. Obama’s work and legacy as First Lady.

“We are honored to document the legacy of President Obama. Our goal is to set a new benchmark for presidential oral histories in terms of the diversity and breadth of narratives assembled and depth of understanding achieved,” said Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Columbia Center for Oral History Research and a Project Co-Investigator. “Central to our project is a commitment to candidly document the stories of key administration alumni and bring them into conversation with the varied experiences of ordinary Americans.”

Clark will work with Peter Bearman, Jonathan R. Cole Professor of the Social Sciences and Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics, and Kimberly Springer, Curator of Columbia’s Oral History Archives.

“We conduct interdisciplinary research, and a trademark of this project is bringing together experts from across fields of knowledge and expertise to ensure our interviewers are asking the right questions, whether they are in the offices of policymakers who enacted the Affordable Care Act, or at the kitchen table of citizens whose lives were affected by it,” said Bearman, who will serve as the principal investigator for the project.

Columbia University also announced the formation of the Obama Presidency Oral History Advisory Board, composed of leading presidential historians, including Robert Dallek and Douglas Brinkley; acclaimed journalists such as Michele Norris and Jelani Cobb; and top scholars in history, political science, sociology, and public health, who can speak to how this period affected the lives of those inside and outside of Washington. A full list of advisory board members is below.

The oral histories are expected to be publicly available online at Columbia University no later than 2026. Following the project’s completion, the Foundation will look for opportunities to connect the oral history archive with related collections and content, including the National Archives-administered digital records of the Obama presidency.

“Columbia is committed to preserving our past for use in the future,” Springer said. “Columbia’s collection is distinguished for the inclusion of perspectives, not just ‘Great Men,’ but the many others who shape our world. Our archive includes a vast array of histories so that current and future generations of historians and citizens can learn lessons from our times.

Obama Presidency Oral History Advisory Board

• Lee C. Bollinger, Chair, President and Seth Low Professor of the University, Columbia University

• Peter Bearman, Vice-Chair, Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) and Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

• Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University

• Douglas Brinkley, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Professor of Humanities, Rice University

• Karida Brown, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

• Jelani Cobb, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism and Director of the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, Columbia Journalism School

• Robert Dallek, presidential historian and author

• Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department, Columbia University

• David Hollinger,  Preston Hotchkis Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

• Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University

• Jennifer Lee, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

• Kenneth Mack, Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History, Harvard University

• Helen Milner, B.C. Forbes Professor of Politics and International Affairs and Director of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

• Alondra Nelson, President of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study

• Michele Norris, radio journalist and former host of the National Public Radio (NPR) evening news program “All Things Considered”

• Vicki L. Ruiz, Distinguished Professor of History and Chicano/Latino Studies, History School of Humanities, University of California, Irvine

• Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, Harvard University

• Keith Wailoo, Chair of the Department of History and Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs, Princeton University

Background on Columbia Center for Oral History

The Columbia Center for Oral History, founded in 1948, is the country’s largest and oldest oral history archive, with more than 11,000 recorded interviews and over 25,000 hours of transcript. The collection is renowned for its diversity, including memories from the 1870s to present, from the experiences of labor organizers to recollections of Supreme Court justices. Columbia is also home to the nation’s only graduate level training program in the field of oral history.

Housed at INCITE, Columbia University’s leading interdisciplinary social science research center, Columbia Oral History’s recent major works include projects to document how New Yorkers experienced September 11, the “Rule of Law” project to examine Guantanamo and civil rights law in the 21st Century, and a history of the Council of Foreign Relations.